$33.5M safety building to add hundreds to tax bills

PORT WASHINGTON - The Port Washington Common Council on Tuesday unanimously approved spending $33.5 million to construct a new public safety building on the city’s far west side, a move that will add hundreds of dollars to the property tax bills of city residents.

A $33.5 million borrowing will result in a tax increase of $573 on a house with an assessed value of $300,000 beginning next year, according to figures presented to the Common Council last week.

For a house valued at $200,000, taxes would increase $382 and for a $250,000 home they would rise $478. Taxes on a house valued at $350,000 would go up $669, and for a $400,000 house they would increase $764.

Those increases would not affect this year’s property tax bills but would be reflected in the bills received next December.

Before the vote, Barrett Genson, 1822 Newport Vista Dr., told aldermen he believes the entire project had been mismanaged, saying the city should have set a budget and designed a building to meet that budget with an independent body overseeing the entire process.

“You left the door wide open,” Genson, a retired Port architect, said. “I think the management of this project has been terrible. I don’t believe you’ve done your due diligence.

“When you start a project, why not set a limit?”

Aldermen Jonathan Pleitner and Deb Postl said before Tuesday’s meeting that the steep tax increase was a concern, especially coming on top of a $1.75 million tax levy increase approved this spring to hire six additional full-time paramedics and a 43% water rate increase that went into effect last year.

“There’s a need and there’s a cost and how do you reconcile that?” Postl said. “I have not had much sleep trying to decide how I will vote.”

Pleitner said the steep increase is “a drastic step. It’s something I don’t take lightly,” but he said the city has to do something about the poor condition of the police and fire stations.

“A lot of these needs haven’t been addressed for 30 years,” Pleitner said. “There are unsafe conditions we’re dealing with. These are not decisions we can kick down the road.”

Postl concurred, saying during the meeting that after talking to various city officials that she was convinced that both the existing police and fire stations need to be replaced.

Constructing a stand-alone fire station “would have been wrong” because both buildings are in such need of repair, she said.

Like Postl and Pleitner, Ald. Dan Benning said the need for the building is prompted by deferred decisions in the past, but he said the impact of the project is “not insignificant.”

“I don’t like it. I don’t like the number,” he said. “It’s going to hurt. But in this day and age, that’s the cost.”

To help mitigate the cost, he said, officials are been talking about how to decrease borrowing for other projects in the near future.

Aldermen voted with few comments to set the maximum cost of the public safety building at $33.5 million. Only Ald. Pat Tearney was absent.

Ald. John Sigwart questioned what would happen if bids for the building come in higher than $33.5 million.

“What if bids come in at $38 million?” Sigwart asked. “What then? Would the building shrink? Would it be redesigned and rebid?”

Ric Miller, a partner with MC Group, the city’s owner’s representative, said he’s confident the final cost will not exceed that amount, comparing it to a school referendum that authorizes only a set amount of money.

“I realize this is a bit of a leap of faith,” Miller said. “We know a not-to-exceed (number) is just that.”

The $33.5 million, he noted, isn’t just for construction but also includes land acquisition, furnishings and other so-called soft costs.

  After the meeting, Mayor Ted Neitzke called the council’s action “bold and courageous,” noting it is a commitment to move ahead with the new building.

“I believe this is a case of deferred maintenance that has caught up with us,” he said. “When you look at the position we’re in, we’ve held taxes down for so long and piecemealed everything. These things are now coming due.

“Nobody wants to increase taxes, but at the same time you can’t watch your infrastructure fall apart. We have for too long been shortsighted in terms of infrastructure.”

The Common Council is contemplating charging an impact fee on new developments in the city that would defray a portion of the cost of the public safety building, he noted, and the new development itself will help lessen the tax impact of the new structure.

In the past, Neitzke has also suggested the city could sell the land now occupied by the police and fire stations for development and use the proceeds to defray the cost of the public safety building.

Neitzke also noted Tuesday that some costly city projects such as repairs to the lighthouse and renovations to the library will be covered by grant money rather than paid for through taxes.